UTF-8

[Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <edmundo@rano.demon.co.uk>]

Michael Sobolev <mss@transas.com>:

> As for the UTF-8, I do not know whether UTF-8 is well supported by other
> programs.  So, it's too early to use it, I believe.

Perhaps it's appropriate to ask these general questions here:

Which programs do support UTF-8? Which programs are a nuisance because
they don't support UTF-8?

Is there any simple way under Debian to read UTF-8 e-mail that
contains a mixture of Russian and Hungarian (or any other pair for
which there is no standard 8-bit character set)?

I can provide one fairly uninteresting answer: on the Linux console
you can read a web page containing a wacky mixture of alphabets as
follows:

$ consolechars -f LatArCyrHeb-16.psf
$ unicode_start
$ lynx http://www.esperanto.mv.ru/KompLeks/UTF8/LI.html#LITEROJ-CIRILAJ

But you have to have the "display character set" set to UTF-8. (Press
"o"; lynx updates your .lynxrc for you if you ask.) If you're reading
a local file, add -assume_local_charset=utf-8 to the lynx command.

The kernel's treatment of Unicode on the console has some bugs (see my
patch at http://www.rano.demon.co.uk/kernel_patch/003) and apparently
there's still the line discipline to sort out. If anyone can tell me
how to get a UTF-8 xterm or equivalent, I'd be interested ...

Edmund